1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a dental filling device, specifically to a device used to form and shape small pellets of dental filling material prior to placement in a tooth cavity preparation.
2. Description of Prior Art
Certain kinds of tooth cavity preparations can be very small. Presently, the tool used to deliver a dental filling material to these small cavity preparations is an amalgam carrier. U.S. Pat. No. 3,638,314 to Lopez and Valdes describes such a device. This device works by first loading a hollow, cylindrical tube at one end with a filling material. The plunger is located on the opposite end. The plunger is pushed to express the loaded filling material from the carrier into a cavity preparation.
The amalgam carrier suffers from a number of disadvantages:
(a) The small cavity preparation is usually much smaller than the barrel of the amalgam carrier. Filling the small cavity preparation with this device will result in a gross amount of material outside, not into, the cavity preparation. The filling process with the amalgam carrier is difficult, laborious and messy. PA1 (b) The bulky amalgam carrier is useless when the filling is done in a difficult to reach location of the mouth. PA1 (c) The amalgam carrier is unable to control the amount of filling material and can be used only with amalgam. PA1 (d) The amalgam carrier is costly. PA1 a) to provide a new and simple way of delivering a dental filling material to a small cavity preparation. PA1 b) to form and deliver manageable amounts of a dental filling material to a small cavity preparation. PA1 c) to provide an expeditious way of delivering a dental filling material. PA1 d) to provide a device that can be used with a variety of dental filling materials.